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Microsoft FAT Licensing Plan - No Big Deal?

Posted by simoniker on from the slimming-look dept.

prostoalex writes "InternetNews.com describes the reaction to Microsoft's decision on FAT licensing. It doesn't look like the company is expecting to make any significant money out of licenses (there's also a cap of $250K, so none of the big guys will have to pay millions to Microsoft). It also doesn't look like Linux companies are stressed over this decision. "We are only accessing FAT32 file systems, not using them. This licensing program is of little interest to SuSE", a Novell/SuSE spokesperson said."

3 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. This isn't about patents... by cperciva · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This isn't about making money, and it isn't about protecting a patent. This is simply an exercise for the benefit of the courts: Microsoft will be holding FAT (along with lots of other things) up as examples of how they're making their standards available to the competition.

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    1. Re:This isn't about patents... by Apreche · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is exactly right.

      Slashdot says: They're making us pay money to use FAT!

      Microsoft says: We own FAT. We are the only ones who are allowed to use it. We will now let everyone use it for a fee, thus allowing others to use our things. So we're more open than we used to be.

      The day after /. posted the first story crying about how MS was going to charge for fat I saw a nes article about how MS was becoming more open and letting loose fat for everyone to use.

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  2. Re:...I Spoke to them by Tim+C · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you prefer, look at it this way - perhaps MS realise how much of a mess they've made of implementing certain things in the past, and so recognise that if they can mess it up, so can anyone else. That may be part of the reason why - acknowledging that they're nothing special when it comes to writing software.

    Hell, recently there was a problem with LG not implementing the "cache flush" instruction on some of their CD drives, instead using it for "update firmware". That's a monumentally stupid thing to do when implementing an accepted standard. Given that that happened, don't you think it possible that some large manufacturer could mess up their FAT implementation?

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